Casino developer fights back against tribes

KG Urban Enterprises again is scoffing at tribal efforts to intervene in the developer's legal challenge of the state's Expanded Gaming Act.

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By STEVE DeCOSTA

southcoasttoday.com

By STEVE DeCOSTA

Posted Jan. 30, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jan 30, 2013 at 2:03 PM

By STEVE DeCOSTA

Posted Jan. 30, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jan 30, 2013 at 2:03 PM

» Social News

KG Urban Enterprises again is scoffing at tribal efforts to intervene in the developer's legal challenge of the state's Expanded Gaming Act.

KG, which hopes to develop a commercial casino at the site of an abandoned power plant in New Bedford, wasted no time in blasting the latest bids by the Mashpee Wampanoag and Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) to become parties in the suit that attempts to toss out the act's preference for a federally recognized tribe to get casino exclusivity in Southeastern Massachusetts.

"Both the Mashpee and the Aquinnah have backtracked significantly from the positions they advanced in their original motions," KG said in a response filed three days after the latest briefs from tribes.

"The Mashpee originally took the extraordinary position that this entire case ... must be dismissed solely because the tribe has now belatedly intervened to seek its dismissal," KG said. "But the tribe now argues in the alternative that this court should stay KG's claims indefinitely pending the outcome of the land-in-trust process."

And KG doubted the Mashpee's claims that the tribe is on the verge of gaining the federal approvals it needs — land into trust and a negotiated compact with the state — to develop a $500 million casino in Taunton.

"The Taunton parcel is currently nothing more than a piece of ordinary commercial real estate and the tribe's effort to construe (the federal Department of) Interior's rejection of their earlier compact as a blueprint for success is wishful thinking in the extreme," KG said.

The Aquinnah, meanwhile, "originally sought to intervene in this case to litigate the scope of their land settlement with the commonwealth in the mid-1980s, but now seek intervention to defend the constitutionality of Section 91(a)" of the gaming act, a provision that is not even being challenged, KG argued.

KG challenged the Expanded Gaming Act on the day it was signed in November 2011, claiming the tribal preference was an illegal race-based set-aside.

Judge Nathaniel Gorton threw out the case in February 2012 but, five months later, a federal appeals court panel of three judges ruled the dismissal was improper and ordered him to reconsider the case.